


The Governess

by experimentingwithbackcombing



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Victorian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 15:57:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/688770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/experimentingwithbackcombing/pseuds/experimentingwithbackcombing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose Tyler is a governess in 1890s London. When she meets a man in a blue box, she discovers a whole new world...and the beating in her head-once quiet as a heartbeat-grows louder. Perhaps she isn't just a governess. Maybe she isn't even human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

And the usual disclaimer where I say that the characters do not belong to me!

Rose Tyler was thankful for her position. She ought to be, as most of those who came into her acquaintance were quick to tell her, and if those in her acquaintance gained any more information, they were likely to say that she should be especially thankful given her mysterious origins and kaleidoscopic upbringing.

Rose Tyler was thankful for her position. She was happy to work, she was glad to have a stable place of residence, people she might call family, even if she must call them the family instead of her own. For all intents and purposes, Rose Tyler was completely content; it was expected of her, and she had absolutely no reason not to be, so it served her purposes well to remain complacent.

She finished rolling her hair onto the top of her head and secured the final pins firmly within the delicately arranged chignon on the top of her head. It was not yet six in the morning and much of the house still slept.

"Rosie!" she heard from the corridor, followed by a stampede of tiny feet. The door to her room was promptly flung open to the view of two small children, clothing rumpled and hair awry.

Rose turned with her hands on her hips giving the children a distinct frown.

"What have I said," she began, "about coming into this room without my permission?"

The children looked steadfastly at the floor.

"Well?" she asked again, crouching to their level.

"We aren't to come into Miss Rose's room without her consent and company," the oldest, Ava, replied quickly through barred teeth. "But Miss Rose—"

"And you must call me Miss Tyler, my dears, I don't suppose your papa would be very happy to know I've let you start calling me 'Rosie'."

"But 'Rose' is a pretty name," the youngest, Fredrik, said quietly. He looked up cautiously as if to gauge whether or not he was still in trouble, and seeing that he was not, hazarded a smile.

Rose smiled in return. "Well, there's nothing more to be said for it," she said, standing back up and shaking her head. "By the look of things, you've been playing in the upstairs rooms again. Between the two of you there must be enough cobwebs to grace every mummy in Egypt, and you haven't even eaten breakfast. I suppose you know what this means?" She raised an eyebrow at the two small blond children standing in front of her, their faces full of a knowing sort of terror.

"No, please, Miss Rose—Miss Tyler—" Ava stammered, but to no avail.

"I have no choice but to draw the two of you a bath."

While Ava looked at Rose with all the disdain her six-year-old countenance could muster, Fredrik began to cry in earnest.

"We're sorry! We'll never come into your room without asking again!"

"I'm not bathing you because you've come and barged into my room, but that was very bad of you indeed. I am bathing you because you are the children of Swedish Ambassador, and the children of ambassadors do not kiss their fathers good morning with faces full of dust and hair full of cobwebs."

Rose smoothed out the front of her skirt and adjusted the bustle before turning to the mirror once more to check on her collar and cuffs.

"Come, you two," she said, pushing them out the door. "No breakfast until you've all the dirt off your faces."

Ava and Fredrik walked sullenly down the hallway and Rose called for hot water to be brought up to the children's copper bathtub. She helped them off with their nightclothes and ushered them into the water. They really were good children, she thought to herself, handing Fredrik the soap as Ava stepped into a fluffy towel, careful not to let the water drip onto her blouse.

"This is how an ambassador's daughter ought to be," Rose proclaimed. "Smelling of flowers and clean as snow." Ava smiled at her governess and Fredrik giggled when the soap slipped through his tiny fingers.

"And me?" he asked.

"And you are just as an ambassador's son ought to be: clean." The small boy erupted in a fit of laughter and Rose left Ava to picking out her frock while she concentrated on the rather stubborn smudge of dirt on Fredrik's cheek. Within the next half hour, she had two squeaky-clean children ready to have breakfast with their father.

The Swedish Ambassador was a large and sculpted man, what Rose imagined an ancient Viking might have looked like. He sat imperiously at the breakfast table and stirred his cup of tea.

"My dears!" he exclaimed-his accent thick-when he caught sight of his two young children entering the room. She could not accuse the man of a lack of parental enthusiasm, at least on an outward level.

"And Miss Tyler! I trust they haven't given you too much trouble this early in the morning?"

"Oh, no, Minister Henriksen, not too much at all."

The ambassador nodded and turned again to his children. Rose made a quiet exit to leave the ambassador and his wife to their hour of haphazard parenting, which included trying and failing to get their children to eat their breakfast, after which Rose would let Fredrik play while she taught Ava French and drawing.

Rose went to sit on a settee in the parlor and drank the tea brought to her by one of the maids while she waited for Ava and Fredrik to finish their breakfast. It was one of the few quiet moments she had to herself before a day filled with the demands of her two very energetic charges.

It was a mild day at the Ambassador's home in Marylebone, a day not particularly nicer than others, but perhaps more still. The sound of carriages passed with its usual regularity and the ticking of the clock bounced off the walls of the room creating a syncopated sort of rhythm that was simultaneously lulling and maddening.

Feeling restive, Rose looked out the window to the London street and made an effort to think about nothing. She was thankful, she repeated to herself. She was glad to have such a place, to work for a gentleman who knew the Queen. Somehow saying it might make it more true—perhaps it was something about the morning, not anything she could name, that made her feel restless. Thankful, still, always thankful, even if only in name, but that would have to be good enough. If a name weren't good enough, then she would have nothing.

She lifted herself off the settee and crossed the room to the window and peered down to the street. The grating rhythm from the clock was less intense from this particular part of the room; the acoustics seems to cooperate in this area. Below was a sea of grey and black and brown. She could not ever remember having a garden to play in when she was young (though she could not remember much of her young life), but she wished for the sake of the Henriksen children that there might have been a patch of green for them to run in, for it always did children good to run around.

Something caught her eye as she looked out onto New Cavendish. It was a spot of blue amongst mud and grey just within her peripheral vision, but as she moved closer to the window to take a closer look, the children came rushing into the parlor.

"Fredrik, you've jam all over your hands," she said disapprovingly, pulling him out of the folds of her skirts. The time after breakfast was an anxious time for Fredrik, who found his parents austere and frightening.

Rose cut her eyes over to the window again. Whatever it was that was out there was gone now. She put it out of her mind as much as she could, which was not very much at all, and turned to the children with a warm smile.

"S'il vous plait, Ava, cherchez votre livre et lisez l'histoire de Cendrillon."

She wasn't sure what she had seen earlier, Rose thought as Ava began reading in clumsy, broken French, but if she had seen it correctly—and she wasn't entirely convinced that she had—a large blue box had all but materialized in the middle of the pavement on New Cavendish Street.


	2. Part 2

After dinner, Rose sat with the children in their room. Fredrik, though extremely adamant all the way up the stairs that he was not sleepy at all, and that he would stay up with Papa if she would let him, was now soundly asleep, thumb in mouth. Rose finished plaiting Ava's long, blonde hair and tied it off.

"I won't have you waking the whole house up in the morning," she warned as she tucked her in. "Sleep well," she whispered, and kissed her on the forehead before extinguishing the candle and shutting the door behind her.

She turned around to find herself but six inches from Mr. Henriksen, and she jumped in surprise.

"Miss Tyler," he began, looking just as startled as she was. "I just thought I might say goodnight to my children."

"I'm afraid Fredrik is already sleeping."

"Oh, well, then. Wouldn't want to wake them up."

"I'm sorry. If I had known you wanted to say good night, I would have waited." She looked at his towering form, and thought how strange it was to see him startled.

"It's no trouble. Thank you for being so patient with them."

"They're wonderful children," she replied, trying to sidestep her way out between the door and the ambassador. As she did so, he seemed to regain his composure.

"I'm sorry to have kept you, Miss Tyler. I will let you retire to bed."

Rose curtsied slightly. "Good night, Minister."

"Oh, Miss Tyler," he said as she turned away. His tone again became ministerial and precise.

"Yes, sir?"

"Would you mind terribly going down to the kitchen to trouble Wilson to send a cup of milk up to my wife? I would not ask except that you are heading in that direction and—"

"Of course, Minister," she replied, curtsying again.

Walking down the back stairs, the beat of her shoes hitting each step thrumming against an imminent headache from a day of very energetic children, she imagined the Minister sidling back to his rooms—separate from his wife's—to have his valet prepare him for bed. He was a fine man, the Minister, though openly unfaithful to his wife; what was less widely known was that she would never have to worry about inappropriate advances, as he preferred the company of his valet to the attentions of any profligate housemaid.

"Mrs. Wilson?" she called, closing her eyes upon entering the kitchen and concentrating more on the thumping headache crawling over her temples more than her words. "Mrs. Wilson, the Minister wondered if you might have a cup of milk sent up to Mrs. Henriksen."

When she opened her eyes at hearing no reply from the cook, she saw not the drab though endearing woman she was expecting to find, but a very tall, lanky man in a very brown suit.

She jumped backwards and gasped.

"Excuse me," she said. The response was practically automatic.

"No need, I think I was the one to run into you, anyway." The man smiled cheerfully, his hands buried the pockets of a long trench coat. She had to look up to see him properly, and when she did so, she found herself looking at a man with sort of brownish hair and dark eyes.

"Are you trying for muttonchops?" she found herself asking, although she couldn't fathom why she asked it.

He chuckled and raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Sorry, I don't know where that question came from. That was rather untoward of me. Please excuse me."

"Well, I'm not."

"You aren't what?"

"Trying for muttonchops."

"Oh, right. Sorry."

"Just like sideburns, me." He rocked back and forth on his feet.

"What on Earth are you wearing?" she asked.

His eyebrows practically leapt to his hairline. "Interesting question, that. Smart question. You're not going to ask who I am?"

"What? Oh, right. I'm sorry; I'm having trouble concentrating. Headache," she said by way of explanation.

"Let me," he responded, and he fished out a metal sort of tool that he held up to her temple. It made a funny noise and the beating in her head ceased. "Better?"

"Yes, thank you. How did you—?"

"Handy device, this." He wiggled it between his thumb and forefinger. "So where were we?"

"Um…"

"Oh, yes! What on Earth it is I'm wearing!"

"Yes, sorry, you don't have to answer that. I was just looking for Mrs. Wilson."

"Mrs. Wilson isn't here."

"She isn't here? " she asked. "Wait, how do you know?"

"I was looking for her, too."

"You know Mrs. Wilson?" This man was proving more and more puzzling, and not just because of his sideburns and strange footwear.

"Oh, yes, but not by that name."

"Excuse me? What are you suggesting? That Mrs. Wilson is some kind of fraud?"

"Oh, you ask just the right questions, you do."

"Who are you, anyway?"

"Another excellent question. I'm the Doctor."

"The Doctor? Is somebody ill?"

"Are you asking in context of the whole wide universe or the confines of this house?"

Rose gave him a look that bordered on exasperation.

"No, nobody is ill in this house. That I know of."

"Then why—?"

"I told you, I was looking for Mrs. Wilson," he said.

She looked him up and down as if to appraise him. In the span of five minutes, this strange man appeared strangely magnificent.

"Then we have that in common. Wait, what are you looking for Mrs. Wilson for?"

"What are you looking for her for?"

"Cup of milk."

"Cup of milk? Mine's better."

"Oh?" The man in front of her—the Doctor, apparently—was looking at her with a sort of childlike enthusiasm, like he had a secret that he was itching to tell. He was worse than Fredrik.

"Oh, yes. I happen to be looking for Mrs. Wilson because I suspect she might have something to do with the electrical outages in the Andromeda galaxy." His eyes lit up as he spoke.

"Electricity? You mean like light bulbs and telegraphs?"

"That's what you're wondering about? What electricity is? That's what you pick out in that sentence?"

She raised an eyebrow at him and crossed her arms and attitude.

"If you're thinking I don't know that the Andromeda galaxy is the closest galaxy to our own, spiral in shape, and 778 kilo parsecs from Earth, then you are wrong. I do, in fact, know those things," she ended rather ineloquently.

"I'm…very impressed. How did you know—?"

She shrugged. "I just do. I might not be a lord or lady, but it isn't impossible to pick up on things."

She could tell he was thinking hard, but she really didn't know how she'd come across that information. She wasn't even sure she knew what a kilo parsec was. She paused for a moment and thought about that herself before she realized…

"But—"

"There it is," he muttered.

"How could Mrs. Wilson be responsible for electricity outages in the Andromeda galaxy?"

His mouth perked up into a smile. "Alien."


	3. Chapter 3

There was only one thing for it: it must have been a dream. Rose rolled over in her bed and yawned. It was Sunday and the children slept late as did the rest of the household, and she didn’t expect even the scullery maids to be up for another hour. There would be church for all of them to attend later in the morning, from which she was thankfully exempt.

The problem of being wide awake at four in the morning afforded her the opportunity to reflect on what her better thoughts told her could only have definitely been a dream.

For if it were not a dream, then she would be liable to admit that she had followed a man who called himself the Doctor—she knew, for some reason, that the alias warranted a capital letter—out into the streets of Marylebone where he chanced upon the woman Rose had once considered both the house’s head cook and, as far as she had been concerned, human. And admit that she had watched from behind the corner of a stone building, and seen Mrs. Wilson turn from the husky, middle-aged woman she knew her to b, into a decidedly green sort of figure at the flick of that device the Doctor had used on her not moments before.

If she were to consider that this very realistic dream was in fact reality and not a sleep-induced mental romp, then the would have to acknowledge that this Doctor had, in fact, turned around, and upon catching her eye, gave her a deliberate sort of wink, and led a very reluctant ex-Mrs. Wilson into a large blue box. 

The entire idea was ridiculous incredible, and by all accounts fantastic, but she could not shake the feeling that it was not a dream, but instead the real and true events of the previous few hours.

::

The Henriksen family left for church services before eleven, and Rose was left with some time of her own. Maids and footmen bustled through the rooms with considerably more indiscretion when the masters were out, and Rose was not immune to such temptation. She took a pouch out from the trunk at the foot of her bed and walked to the back door of the house to the open air where there were a few shrubberies and a small herb garden, but otherwise plain and unadorned. A wrought-iron fence enclosed the limit of the small space, and it was largely quiet and secluded.

She took a bit of paper and a generous pinch of tobacco from the pouch and rolled it into a fattish cylinder, and upon sealing it and finding a match, lit the end and inhaled deeply.

It was not a habit she was particularly proud of, but it had the desired effect of calming her mind, which was unusually busy. For the past few hours she had been able to think of nothing but her dream, or last night, whichever it was. It was beginning more and more to feel real, especially when she realized that Mrs. Henriksen had never received her cup of milk.

She took another drag from her cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke into the late morning air. The wind wicked it away before it could become a proper haze, and brought instead the scent of flowers from neighboring gardens.

“You really shouldn’t smoke,” said an approaching voice.

She spun her head around with such speed that she cricked her neck and she swore under her breath.

“Wouldn’t let too many people hear that, either.”

“You,” she said, rubbing her neck.

“Me.” He paused. “May I?”

She looked at the long metal device he held between his fingers, the same one that had cured her of her headache the previous evening, and the same one that revealed Mrs. Wilson’s…ahem, true colors.

“I don’t know--” she started to say as raised the device to her neck, and the pain melted away. “Thanks,” she said lamely.

“My pleasure,” he replied with a stupid sort of grin. He really looked quite pleased with himself.

“What is that thing anyway?”

“I call it a sonic screwdriver. Pretty cool, eh?”

“’Cool’?” She wasn’t sure how she could know how this device was particularly cold to the touch.

“Never mind. Never did get your name.”

“Rose,” she said almost immediately, unsure why precisely she sounded so eager. “Rose Tyler.”

“Rose Tyler,” he repeated, rocking back and forth on his feet. “Rose Tyler, Rose Tyler, Rose Tyler, Rose Tyler.”

She gave him an incredulous look and snuffed out her cigarette.

“Who on Earth are you?” she asked. 

“That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?” he proffered, winking. 

“I saw you—last night in that alley. That was real! And Mrs. Wilson! You just pointed that—that thing at her, and suddenly—poof! Well, I suppose it wasn’t really a poof, but she was most definitely not Mrs. Wilson anymore.”

He cracked a smile. “You’re smart; I like you. And, no, that was still Mrs. Wilson, but that’s just one of her many aliases.”

“You said…she was an alien?” She could not manage to keep the curiosity out of her voice. “What do you mean that she was alien?”

He paused for a moment and looked her over. She was standing with her hands on her hips in a defiant sort of attitude. “Rose Tyler, have you ever seen the stars?”

“I went to the country once before my employment here. They are much easier to see there than in town.”

“Would you like to see them for real?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked, her eyes growing wide.

“No, no, I mean…oh, I mean, would you like to go for a ride?”

Her eyebrows arched even higher. What did he think she did for a living?

He was trying to think of a way to salvage the situation when she interrupted.

“You still haven’t told me who you are, and you haven’t told me why you’ve come back here. All I know is that you’re a doctor and you have what appears to be a magic wand and you took the former Mrs. Wilson inside a blue box and—wait, what happened to her? Where did you take her? Is she alive? Is she coming back?”

“Oh, yes, she’s alive. And I imagine you’ll see her soon. I can never keep her away for long.”

“What?”

“Intergalactic petty thief. I turned her into the proper authorities, is all. Her last job caused a few more problems. Found her, turned her in. Don’t usually do errands like that, but it couldn’t be helped. She’ll be free again soon. I expect you’ll get your cook back in a week.”

Her expression was frozen. “Intergalactic petty thief? Does that mean…does that mean you’re an…an alien too?”

He smiled and nodded. “At your service.”

The silence between them was diminished by the clanging of china and silverware in the house, by the steady clop of horses on the street cobbles, and the gentle wind that rustled through the leaves. A streak of pain lashed through her head and she bent over.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his tone nervous.

“’S my head. Give me a moment. Would you mind?” she asked, beginning to roll another cigarette. “These tend to help.”

He shrugged as she puffed out a cloud of smoke.

“Have you seen anyone about those headaches of yours?”

She shook her head, the thumping pain beginning to ebb away.

“I could take a look.”

“It’s all right. I’m fine, really.”

“You didn’t look so fine just a moment ago.”

“I’m better now; I promise.” She took a final drag on the cigarette and extinguished it on the ground. “You never did explain why you came back.”

“I was wondering the same thing.” His face slowly relaxed when he saw that she really did seem to have recovered. “After dropping off Mrs. Wilson, I set coordinates for Minas II, but instead I wound up in the next garden over,” he continued, nodding in the direction of the neighboring house.”

“Bad driving?” she suggested, giving him a teasing smile where her tongue stuck out slightly between her teeth. It really was rather lovely.

“Oi, no. My ship just brought me back here. Doesn’t usually do that unless there’s something important worth looking into. Must have picked up a signal.”

“What kind of signal?”

He shrugged. “Not the normal kind.”

Rose looked around the garden, and peered at the house. The family wouldn’t be back for at least another hour, and she was growing more curious by the moment.

“Could I help?” she asked.

He contemplated this and pulled at one of his ears in thought.

“Can you follow directions?” he asked.

She was rather used to giving directions that following them, but she imagined that she could probably do as she was told. “Yes.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes.”

“Could be dangerous.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “So is smoking in the garden.”

He gave her another once-over before speaking again.

“You know how I asked you earlier if you’d like to see the stars? Fancy a trip?”


End file.
